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Linux in Munich Followup
Rican writes "Wired has a story that details some of the difficulties that Project LiMux seems to be experiencing in Munich. Including financial and technical issues. On the positive side it looks like despite these setbacks they are continuing with the project and have a positive attitude about its completion. Let's keep our fingers crossed and do what we can to support this monumental effort that will benefit the whole Open Source Community."
Munich Council Press Statement (translated)
Stefan Hauf
Presseamt Muenchen
http://www.muenchen.de
Munich goes with Open Source Software
The city of Munich will use Linux as the operating system for their 14,000 PC clients as well as open source software for their office applications.
With the votes of SPD, Alliance 90/Die Gruenen/Pink list, FDP, OEDP, REP and Party of Democratic Socialism, the town assembly followed Mayor Christian Ude's proposal.
An appraisal given by the city in order to evaluate the pro and cons of a conversion of the present urban standard "Windows NT/Microsoft Office" alternatively on "Windows XP/Microsoft Office" or "Linux/Open Office" comes to the conclusion that there is a clear strategic-qualitative projection/lead for the open source solution.
Mayor Ude: "With this trend-setting decision Munich secures itself as the first major city to have a major portion of its IT infrastructure be supplier-independent and sets also a clear indication of more competition in the software market. The prehistory of this decision already showed that a competitive situation helps the formation of prices pretty well. "
Regarding the decision, mayor Ude pointed out that this is not a decision for a specific IT partner, but a strategic positioning based on a noncommittal market evaluation.
Until spring 2004, a detailed concept of implementation and migration will be developed. Based on the results of this evaluation, the city council will decide how the migration to Linux will take place.
IBM Germany Statement
May 28th 2003
The city council of Munich today made a key decision to deploy the open source operating system Linux instead of alternative operating systems. This initiative will see Germany's third largest city migrate 14,000 desktop and notebook computers to Linux. Their objective is to deploy information technology that stimulates more commercial and technological flexibility at a lower cost to the public sector. Although the council has not made a decision on its choice of vendor, Linux distributor SuSE AG and IBM Germany will be participating in the resulting contract bid.
Walter Raizner, Country General Manager IBM Germany: "In the public sector in Germany we have seen a variety of new implementations of open standards-based software such as Linux. And worldwide, more than 75 IBM government customers - including agencies in France, Spain, UK, Australia, Mexico, the United States and Japan - have now embraced open computing and Linux to save costs, consolidate workloads, increase efficiency and enact e-government transformation. With Munich's decision, one thing is clear - it's open season for open computing. Linux represents freedom and flexibility. This is essential in e-government - they need more flexibility to serve their constituencies better and faster, and freedom of choice to do it at less cost to the public. Munich is leading the way."
Massive by Design
Huh? Wasn't the final quote from Microsoft much, much less money than the Linux quote? I thought from the start that they took the more expensive choice because it was the better choice. If in order to be successful it must now "prove that Linux can do it for less money" then we've doomed ourselves to failure from the start.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
they went for lower total cost of ownership, and superior strategic position, not lower initial cost.
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Did you miss the part where Munich turned down a sweetened offer from microsoft?
Maybe that's because non of the city staff is using it yet? Remember, thei're still in the process of porting the applications that they need. Moving the users to a linux desktop will only be the last step.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this 120 chars is too small to contain.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
To my knowledge, the last bid by Microsoft was done after the deadline.
Which the Munich of course could not even consider.
Wow, deja vu. Just as good as the last time this response was used. If you're going to copy something, at least make sure you change it around just a little bit. Outright copying of comments is just lame at best.
sigs are like a box of chocolates, they all suck remove the underscores to email me
This is how tenders happen. Bidders get one chance at offering a price. That MS lowered their price after they heard someone elses means that a) they have insane amounts of profit and/or b) their new price will cut lots of corners. Now, software isn't something like construction where a shaved down bit might produce a building that falls down... The incremental cost to MS is zero, once the R&D is done. But the same general logic applies. That MS came back with a lower price, Im sure, solidified the plan to go with Linux. They were clearly trying to screw Munich with their first price.
Ignoring that the loosing bidder was MS for a second, they deserved to loose, their second bid not withstanding.
But, the bidder was not just a random company trying to screw Munich, it was Microsoft. Microsoft is a monopoly. Being a monopoly isnt illegal. Some specific acts arnt illegal in general. However, a monopoly that performs those specific acts is breaking the law. One of those is dumping. While we dont know MS's cost for this project (and that is largely meaningless in this zero-incremental cost industry), we do know that their second try was lower then the competition. Additionaly, the (winning) linux bid had some non-zero cost items. Retraning. Redevelopement of custom software, amongst others Im sure.
Monopolies are not allowed to set prices intentional lower then is possible for the competition.
> It is anti-competitive and hence anti-capitalist.
> since in a free-market situation you have to sell each product for the same price to all customers
Where did you get that idea? Do I have to sell the same product to my concurrent for the same price? Do I have to sell it to small buyer to the same price as to a quantity buyer? Do I have to sell it to the same price to a celebrity than I sell it to Mr Smith.
The city of Munic, a quantity buyer and relatively known entity decided to buy from a different seller. Microsoft decided to leverage its large captial to lower the price, maybe even so far that they make a minus, for the sake of big, known buyer, in fear of losing more clients and to knock out a competitor. Capitalism at work. Just because you don't like it, don't call it otherwise.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Microsoft are in a difficult position - most of their software does everything people want, feature wise. How many people can name what's in Office 2003 over Office 97, or what's the new features in the latest version of Project?
So, Microsoft can't make startling quantum leaps forward because there's nowhere to go - there versions now are like changes to the 100m sprint record.
The OSS guys will be plugging more and more holes, and more businesses and authorities will start switching.
Linux on the desktop is ready...the only thing holding it back is the inertia of windows users. Linux is at least as good technically on the desktop as Win 98/2000 in many areas much better [just the OS/DE mind you] Sure apps are missing, but they will come. The biggest problem are those pesky "must have" windows drivers or software. If you can convert an office to 100% OO.org [or another] you'd be just fine! My biggest problem getting a tryout of OO.org [in prep for Linux!] was those pesky USERS who simply refused to learn something new...and refused to try! I wouldn't deny growing pains...but if office workers were factory workers they'd all be out of work...for holding up progress!!!
Now, you can be a fool and trust other people telling you it will work ok, or you can do it the long, boring, but reliable way.
Me, I work in IT, which means the Information is more important than anything. Being a professional, I do the most reliable thing each time. Other people should take the same mindset.
Also, I like the asshole moderators around here. A person cant even have an intelligent discussion without getting modded down as a troll or whatever. Fucking idiots
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.